


Just Maybe

by bluemacaroons



Category: Fairy Tail
Genre: AU, F/M, High School AU, Hockey, Modern AU, Skating, figure skating
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2014-06-12
Updated: 2014-07-13
Packaged: 2018-02-04 10:27:11
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 17,584
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1775767
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/bluemacaroons/pseuds/bluemacaroons
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>He was a hockey player and she was a figure skater, he never knew how much they would really have in common.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Encounter

There was a handful of things Gray Fullbuster thoroughly enjoyed, and serving arrogant 12 year olds greasy barbecue while having a fistful of spare coins the aforementioned 12 year olds acquired by whining to their parents, shoved into his face was definitely not one of them. The annoying paper like hat and itchy apron decorated in splashes of oil, grease and fat that made up his uniform at the small canteen he worked at at his local arena was also not on the short list.

"What, is this your first day on the job or something?" The grating tone of voice Gray has come to hate reached his ears over the sound of the sizzling meat on the grill. "We've been waiting around for like an hour," The prepubescent boy groaned out while his two friends who flanked him like henchmen sniggered. Biting back the seventeenth smart ass retort of the day that Gray knew would get him fired if he dared utter it to a costumer, he settled for an annoyed "Tch," and flipped two hamburgers onto two buns already adorned with cheese and vegetables he knows will be picked out and tossed carelessly into the nearest garbage can.

Grabbing the Styrofoam plates which carried the two burgers ready to be eaten, Gray turned to face his costumers, wearing a glare he hoped would wipe off the smug smile on the kid's face, but his efforts proved to be fruitless as the counter separating the two acted as a barrier and created a false sense of empowerment, that unfortunately did not favour Gray.

"Five dollars," Was all Gray said as he punched in the order on the register. He knew at a moment like this his she-demon manager would smile at him and tell him to be nicer to the costumers, with an under lying tone of 'and if you aren't, I'll make sure you sadly go missing and are never found again'.

"Maybe I just shouldn't pay you because of all the attitude you're giving me," The brat in the hockey jersey said, making his friends go "ooh" like the kid had just said the best insult they had ever heard in their short and sad lives.

Being over a hundred percent done with people only an hour into his shift, Gray replied, "Look kid, if you want your food then pay up, if you don't want to pay then you're not getting your food and you're going to have to leave because you're holding things up here," while nodding to the line that was starting to form behind the current costumer. In response, the kid made a face and shoved the clamy coins into Gray's face, barely giving him enough time to grab them before they fell to the floor. Grabbing the plates, the little turd walked off laughing loudly and complaining boisterously the apparent bad service.

 _Good riddance,_  Gray thought looking up to the next costumer only to find his second least favourite type of person; the teenage, figure skating girl. Hair slicked back in a tight bun not a stray hair to be seen, who always thought that the cheap canteen he earned his dues at served a lactose free, gluten free, non-fat, half carbs and low sodium meals similar to that of a posh eatery in a trendy town which probably costs half of his paycheck to eat at. These girls were the definition of annoyance, even the human equivalent of a mosquito you hear buzzing around your room once you turn your lights out to go to bed. And the worst thing was that this species of female didn't solely exist at his workplace, but also in the halls of his high school smiling dazzling smiles of whitened teeth and flipping straightened hair over their shoulder, creating a wind of sickly sweet perfume scent that he would never understand why it appealed to most guys his age. They lived off of two hundred dollar allowances a week and whining until they got their way. And for the figure skating sub category, that which the ones standing in front of him fell into, they fed off of the support their parents gave them and investing thousands of dollars because they were sure 'their little angel is going to the Olympics', and earning all this only by smiling like a saint all the while smirking arrogantly behind their backs. Sighing and muttering out the generic welcome in a monotone voice, Gray prepared himself for a long day.

It was a quarter to eleven in the evening when Gray finally had the chance to turn off his register and officially close down the small canteen that had held him prisoner since eleven that morning. Turning off the grill and starting to pack up the condiments and food into their respective containers, Gray felt the restlessness of the moment he's been waiting for all day rise in his chest. After shoving the sealed up containers of food into the bottom of the fridge that kept the drinks cool, and while scrapping down the grill of meat residue, he heard the first sound of the Zamboni make its rounds on the ice, smoothing out the surface, freeing it from nicks and scrapes of the days skating, leaving an irresistible mirror like surface ready to glide on. The anticipation rose once more and for the first time all day, a smile split his face and he scrubbed harder and faster, not wanting to waste a single minute that could be spent doing what he loves most.

Continuing on at top speed, Gray continuously stole glances at the rink, looking as though he was checking to see it was still there. When he had started this job a few months ago, his manager, Mirajane Strauss, had asked why he kept the metal divider between the rest of the arena and his small kitchen area up until the very last minute. Gray had shrugged and responded, "Claustrophobia," but in truth, it was because his skin yearned to feel the crisp air seep into his space and slowly lower the temperate of the room more and more now that he had turned off the grill that acted as a major heat source; it was a lot harder to explain that and he didn't really care to try anyway.

With the food away, cash counted, and now the metal window like contraption slammed shut and lock on the door, Gray scanned the empty arena lobby where the exit to the canteen let out to, checking that no one was lingering. Satisfied with the empty building, Gray made his way to the main office, footsteps creating a slapping sound against the concrete floor and echoing in the silence. Dropping off the cash from the till of the canteen's register in Mira's tiny office, and locking the door behind him, he scanned the arena once more, making sure no one saw him head over to the front desk, reach over and feel around underneath the desk until he found the plastic box he was looking for. Pulling it out and onto the desk, he started to rummage through the contents of the lost and found box, muttering "Please still be here," under his breath. With a triumphant smile on his face, Gray found what he was looking for underneath a child's jacket. Gray took out the pair of men's size 10 hockey skates, thanking his lucky stars for finding them in the first place one night a week ago when he went to pick up his paycheck, and therefore starting the habit of his late night skating sessions.

Without bothering to put back the lost and found box, Gray jogged across the hall to the double doors of the rink and yanked them open, emitting a blast of cold air, only making the smile of his face grow. He walked over to the stands and sat down on the first bench, tugging off his shoes, he jammed his feet into the skates, quickly lacing them up with practiced hands. Soon he was up on his feet, and as he took his first slightly wobbly step onto the rubber mats with bladed feet, he heard one of his favourite sounds; the telltale sound of the blades of skates against the rink. Usually he wouldn't complain, but the sound of scraping ice echoing against the boards that surrounded the frozen water, which were still persisting might he add, were not coming from him as he was still standing outside the boards.

Smile long fallen off his face and instead replaced by an incredulous look, Gray looked up to the rink to see a teenage girl about his age gliding alone on the ice, dressed in a blue and white dress he recognized as one which those figure skating girls wore when they had a practice. The excitement and happiness he had felt just moments before melted into anger and as quickly as he could in skates against a rubber surface, Gray stormed up to the boards, mouth open and ready to shout at the strange girl with blue hair stealing his time to skate and be free and alone, when he stopped, struck with the grace she moved with. The figure skating he observed the other girls do when he didn't have any costumers and a class was taking place on the ice was so much different then what this girl was doing right in front of him. It looked more like a waltz preformed solo on ice, and less like she was trying to calculate he exact motion of each movement in her head.

So he stood there, silent, long enough for the girl to execute some simpler moves and even to see her leap into the air and spin, her arms and legs tightly held to her body, and land back on the ice, not wavering once.

Gray never had to announce his presence to her because her gliding had taken her towards the end of the rink he was standing at, and as she straightened from another of her impressive jumps, she turned to face him, making eye contacting causing her eyes to widen in surprise and to fumble a step, making her lose her balance and slip to the ground, landing on her butt with an "Oomph,".

"The rink is closed you know," Gray called out, a frown settling back onto his face now that he was no longer distracted by the girl's movements. "You're not allowed to be here."

"J-Juvia's sorry, Juvia didn't know," The girl responded, face blushing red as she looked down to her lap where her fingers fidgeted with the hem of her dress. As she remained seated on the ice, legs at an angle Gray was sure couldn't have been comfortable, she was like another person; instead of holding herself with grace and poise, instead she was sitting there like a scolded puppy, awkward and blushing.

Pushing open the door on the boards and stepping on the ice for the first time that day, Gray skated over to her, feeling his spirits already rise, despite being stubborn and wanting to remain angry that he wasn't skating away as he pleased. He was also curious as to who this Juvia was why they were relevant to anything.

He stopped just in front of her, frowning down at her and forcing her to look up at him with wide, apologetic and very blue eyes. "What do you think you're doing out here anyways?"

"Juvia has a figure skating competition and needs to practice," Her voice was small and shaky, but he could tell she was trying to stand up for herself, as her hands were now clenched into fists and her eyebrows were slightly furrowed, and the completely helpless look she had been giving him was replaced with a slightly more intimidating one. And even that was as intimidating as a growling puppy.

"Who the hell is Juvia?" Gray asked exasperated. She just looked at him in confusion and tilted her head, giving him a look like how in the world couldn't he know who Juvia was.

"Juvia is Juvia," She said sounding extremely confused, putting a hand to her chest, indicating herself.

"You're Juvia? Why do you talk in third person?" Gray asked rudely.

"Why aren't you wearing a shirt?" Juvia asked back, eyes straying down to his indeed bare chest for a second, before shooting back up to his face, a blush spread across her cheeks.

"Oh shit!" He exclaimed, groaning. He had this bad habit of casually striping, especially when he was excited or happy or stressed. Looking around, he spotted his t-shirt thrown on the bench next to his regular shoes. Honestly, he was slightly surprised the girl hadn't pointed out his lack of clothing before that point. "T-That's beside the point! You're avoiding the topic, can you just leave already?" He was frustrated now, even more so now that he was slightly embarrassed.

"But Juvia needs to practice!" The blue haired girl whined out, finally getting up quickly from the ice, with a surprising amount of ease, making Gray wonder if she spent a lot of time falling down on the ice.

"Maybe you should've come earlier when the rink was actually open," Gray gritted his teeth.

"There are too many people; Juvia does not have enough room to practice properly."

"Sucks to suck. Maybe you should just get your parents to buy you time on the rink," He shot back at her with a sarcastic tone, almost sneering at her.

"It doesn't work like that," She responded looking awkward, for whatever reason he could not fathom. He made a "Tch," noise, being very annoyed with how this situation turned out. Late nights when everyone was gone was supposed to be a time when he could skate when and for however long he wanted to, not to be spent arguing with this random girl.

"I really don't care if you can or cannot get enough practice time, it's not my problem, but you being here when you're not supposed to is, so leave," She looked really conflicted at this point; she was frustrated, annoyed and mildly frightened of Gray.

"I-Is it because you want to skate?" She asked, nervous again and started fidgeting with her hem once more. "Because you're wearing skates and all and your shoes are on the bench when you could've just yelled from the stands or walked onto the ice." Juvia said this all very fast, so that it was hard to keep up with her. But her presumptions were correct, and this frustrated Gray further.

"It doesn't matter what I'm going to be doing! I work here and it's none of your business." He had raised his voice some and she had flinched away slightly.

"Maybe we could share—" Before she could finish he cut her off.

"No, I'm not going to share the rink just leave!" Now he had really scared her, as her head was bowed and she had taken a full step away from him. It was admirable really that despite her obvious want to not be there and not want this confrontation, she kept her ground, mostly. "Fine. We'll race for the rink time."

"W-What?" Her head shot up, her eyes wide not believing what she had just heard come from Gray's mouth.

"We'll race. The first one to complete two laps around the rink gets to stay and use the rink for as long as they please."

"But the person on the inside lap will have an advantage," She responded, pondering this new idea.

"Then we'll do a switch, when we come up to the start line on our second lap, we'll cross over so the person on the inside will go on the out and the person on the outside will go in," He explained remember the technique he once saw speed skaters use. "The person on the outside will cross behind the person on the inside, and we should do it on a corner so it makes it easier."

"O-Okay, sounds simple enough. For the finish, are we doing the first skate over the line or body?" She asked.

"Let's just do skate," He was getting excited for this race; It would be his first real skating of the night and it brought back memories of times when he would go out to his community outdoor rink and race with his friends.

They made their way over to the decided start line, where Juvia dug a grove in the ice with the pick of her skate. They both settled into a starting position, Juvia on the inside and Gray on the outside. "You ready?" He asked her in a low voice, giving her a side glance to her determined face staring straight ahead.

"Yes." Her voice was steady. Looking back ahead, he prepared himself for the race for a moment before counting down,

"Ready, set," And with a deep breath, "Go!" And they took off. Juvia, with the pick on the front of her blades to help her lift off for a jump, took a head start with a solid first push, but Gray caught up quickly using the strong leg muscles he had acquired over the years of going to the gym and skating, using the muscle memory from years ago when he participated in races multiple times in a week.

They stayed neck and neck, until the first corner, where her advantage of having less ground to cover came in handy, and her turns were more practiced, better executed. It didn't matter though, as they came back out onto the straight stretch as his experience with racing and strong pushes came in handy and enabled him to catch up with her, even pulling ahead a fraction, only to have her catch up and pull back ahead in the at the turn. It carried on like this, past the switch and up until the last stretch of straight rink. They could both see the grove in the rink coming up and they wondered if they wold have to end up sharing the rink because of a tie.

It was then that Gray realised that he was either about to lose or tie with a bitchy figure skating girl, despite this Juvia girl being different from most he's encountered, but the sentiment was the same. So with as much effort he could conjure up, he pushed his legs to go harder, to exert more push into his glides, and it proved worth it as he pulled ahead ever so slightly with little to go before the finish line, and thrust one foot ahead so that his skate crossed the finish line a full second before her smaller skate crossed.

A smile crossed his face; his mood had already brightened with being able to skate especially so fast and with purpose, but to know that he won, and he could easily have the next hour to himself skating more helped greatly. He kept on gliding, not really with any purpose, just until he could catch his breath, which, as he looked over to her, was the exact same thing Juvia was doing, minus the smile and bright mood.

"Hey, you didn't do too bad you know," He called over to her where she was now leaning with her back against the boards. He noticed how she had completely regained her breath, but he was still breathing slightly heavier than normal.

"Thank you. Congratulations on winning, Juvia will go now." Her voice went back to wavering and nervous, and although her head was down and her short hair was somewhat covering her face, he could tell her eyes were watering up. He kind of felt bad.

She started to make her way to over where he presumed she entered in the first place, the door opposite to the one he went through where it was easier to get to the change rooms. She went slowly, looking around the empty rink sadly, kind of reminding him of himself. When she reached the door in the boards, she stopped giving the rink a last look, and eyes finally landing on him, a familiar blush decorating her cheeks, maybe she's embarrassed because she lost, Gray thought.

"If you come late on Thursday, the rink is usually pretty empty, if it helps at all," He called to her, making her smile a little in thanks. She turned back around to open the door and once she had stepped onto the rubber mats and off the nice and the door to the boards closed once again, she turned back to look at him,

"Um, you're missing your pants," She said just loud enough for him to hear, blushing madly before turning around and hurrying off to the female's change room. Looking down, he saw that she was right and he was standing there in his boxers and skates. Groaning, he wondered how he even got his pants off over the big hockey skates.

Taking time to put his pants back on, he spent the next hour or so as he had originally planned, skating his heart out and doing whatever he pleased. But as he was put the borrowed skates back in the lost and found, he wondered to himself why he wasn't as elated as he usually was after his habitual skating sessions.


	2. Coincidence

Chapter 2: Coincidence

 

On a list of things he hated, high school would’ve been third, right after annoying kids and bitchy girls with loaded parents. He seemed to hate a lot of things really, Gray remarked to himself when walking to school the morning after his race with the blue haired girl, Juvia.  Although he had to admit, he was quite thankful for the early morning November weather that nipped at his bare arms exposed by the summer uniform he was still wearing despite it being winter and not summer. He liked the cold almost as much as he loved skating. Some people tell him that he’s weird for that, because he’d never really remembered the experience of getting goose bumps from the cold, or ever shivering the first two weeks of cold weather when the school was too stubborn to turn the heat on because they wanted to save money, but he didn’t really care.

 

Coming up to the corner that intersected with the street that one of his closest friends lived on, he threw his bag down onto the wooden park bench that stood alone on the side of the street, before he himself practically fell down on it. Gray knew she would be late, she always is. He asked her once why she always took forever in the morning and she replied by telling him that he shouldn’t go sticking his nose into a girl’s morning beauty habits. He had just shaken his head at her, wondering for the millionth time why girls were so weird.

 

He crossed his arms over his chest, straightening out his legs and leaning back, letting his head face the sky, eyes closed against the first rays of sun peaking over the small townhouses that lined the streets. He briefly wondered if this is how people felt when he saw them stretched out on the beach in the middle of summer, soaking up the heat from the sun, and warming their backs on the equally hot sand. The relaxation that washed over him was like a blanket of snow covering him, eyes closed but nowhere close to sleep, just content with being alone, listening to the world around him, without having it need to affect him. He was more of a morning person, which had surprised many of his friends when they found out the first time they had their now frequent large group sleepovers, which made it better in that moment surrounded by the air with nothing but his thoughts.

 

“You know, you look more like weirdo than normal like that.” A feminine voice he would recognize anywhere cut through the silence, making a small smirk appear on his face.

 

Without opening his eyes, he replied, “What, kind of like how you look all the time?” his smirk turned into a smile as he cracked an eye open and peeked at one of his closest friends, hands on her hips and blonde hair framing her now mildly annoyed face.

“Now you look more like a jerk.” Gray was laughing lightly to himself now, the good morning already having a positive effect on his mood, but being able to tease his blonde haired friend only added to his bright demeanor. He fully opened both eyes now, and grabbed his bag, slinging it back over his shoulder as her stood up.

“Come on Heartfelia, you’re going to make me late for school again.” He said while messing up her hair with the hand that was not holding his bag, eliciting a sharp squeal and both of her hands going up to her hair trying to flatten it and brushing through it quickly with her fingers, attempting to rearrange it to its original spot. Grumbling and complaining to him, she ran a few steps to catch up with him, giving him a light shove, using her shoulder similar to a hockey body check he had tried to teach her how to do a few weeks back, only resulting in him being thrown off a single step and laughing loudly.

 

Lucy Heartfelia had been one of his closer friends, and one of the friends he’s had for the longest time, which granted, hadn’t been as long as other friendships he’s seen at Magnolia high school, where he was a senior about to graduate. He had met her about a year and a half ago when he first moved to the street adjacent to hers when he accidentally knocked her over at the new student orientation that was held at their high school just before the start of every new school year. She was temperamental and just about as weird as he was, but they got along; he understood her and she understood him more than any of his friends. This was really what made him closer to her than most of his friends, sure he had other good friends, but Gray wasn’t one to talk about feelings with the guys.

 

“Why do you even bother bringing your blazer if you don’t wear it?” Lucy asked, nodding at the jacket that was slung over his shoulder in a similar fashion that his bag was.

 

“Maybe it will start raining.” Gray replied with a shrug, making Lucy scoff.

 

“And then you would just take your shirt off, not put more clothes on!” She exclaimed laughing at his odd habit.

 

“Whatever.” He gave her an annoyed look before turning his face away to hide the slight blush that covered the tops of his cheeks. The rest of the short walk to school was spent in the same manner; joking around and teasing the other mercilessly to get a rise out of them, a game that Lucy often lost due to her habit of overreacting.

 

They arrived at their high school in good time, greeting a few acquaintances as they made their way over to their neighbouring lockers. It was lucky for them that their school granted the students permission to choose their locker instead of being assigned one, which both Lucy and Gray had been thankful for when they started at Magnolia high the previous year, as neither of them knew anyone else besides the other. Although they had only met a month before, Lucy was always nervous about making friends and Gray wasn’t very good at it as he scared people away either with his strange stripping habit or his silent and almost grumpy demeanor.

 

“Looks like we’re actually the first ones here today.” Lucy said with a smile, turning to face me after putting her bag in her locker. He looked over at her, mouth open about to reply, when he caught a flash of pink from over her shoulder. He frowned, about to warn her of the approaching third party but wasn’t fast enough.

 

“Lucy!” A loud voice yelled just before the owner of the voice practically jumped on the blonde’s back, making her eyes go wide and stumbling a few steps forward to catch her balance, Gray himself taking a few steps back to avoid her crashing into him.

 

“Kya!” Lucy let out a girly shriek, trying to twist around to see her attacker. “Natsu!” She yelled out once she saw who had an arm slung over her, the crook of his elbow resting on her shoulder and the rest of his arm draped over her front. The pink haired teenager that was currently laughing his head off in amusement over Lucy’s reaction was the very loud part of their circle of friends, Natsu Dragneel. He and Gray were what one might call frenemies, they were best friends really, but they fought all the time, insulted each other and loved to laugh at the other when one of them messed up. Lucy had once remarked that being mean to each other and punching each other in the face was kind of their way of saying you’re my best friend and I’m here for you.

 

“Morning Luce!” Natsu said cheerfully in his loud voice as he kissed her cheek in greeting, causing Lucy to frown a little less and a small blush to spread across her face. They had been dating since the end of August that year, which everyone had seen coming as they had immediately bonded when they met the first day of school just over a year ago; when Gray and Lucy had chosen their lockers, they didn’t realise the consequences, and bright sides, of picking two right in the middle of the stretch of lockers and found out that they were surrounded a very large and rambunctious group of friends who had all known each other since they were all children. Of course being the friendly bunch that they are, Natsu and the rest of the group had somewhat adopted them into their circle, and even though Lucy and Gray welcomed the friends, they mused that they probably wouldn’t have had much of a choice to say no.

 

“Tch, get a room would you Flame Brain?” Gray scoffed in mock annoyance, turning back to his own locker, holding back a smirk as he waited for the reaction he knew would start a fight.

 

“You want to start something Stripper?” Natsu egged him on, a devilish smile crossing his face as he took his arm from off Lucy and stepped around her to glare and try and intimidate Gray, a daily occurrence really.

 

Lucy sighed to herself, not mentally ready to attempt to break up another fight between the two friends; she wasn’t that much of a morning person. Instead she turned back to her locker to take out the books she needed for her first class, tuning out the bickering and barely dodging the odd flying object that was tossed because Gray and Natsu had learned to not start a full out fist fight with each other unless they wanted to face the wrath of the school’s teachers, or even worse, their friend Erza Scarlet.

 

“Good morning Lucy.” A cool and collected voice greeted her. Lucy looked up to see a shock of bright red hair that could only belong to the aforementioned Erza. Erza was a senior along with Gray, Natsu and Lucy being juniors, and was widely known due to her position as student council president as well as her amazing athletic ability, high academic levels and all around being a person you did not want to cross in fear of your life. Of course her friends knew her as the same, but they recognized her more as a cake loving, packs-too-much-on-trips, a little different than the rest person.

 

“Good morning Erza!” Lucy said happily and a little louder than normal to let the two squabbling boys behind her aware of their red haired friend, eliciting a sharp squeak from one of them and a panicked whisper, “ _Erza!?”_.

 

“Good morning Natsu, Gray,” Erza turned and greeted the boys who were now attached to each other’s hip, an arm around the others shoulder, smiling like they were best friends. “Not fighting I hope.” She squinted her eyes at them while Lucy put a hand up to her mouth, trying to hold in a laugh.

 

“Of course not, we’re best friends!” Gray exclaimed in a higher pitch of voice than he usually talks in.

 

“Aye sir!” Was all Natsu said, reminding Lucy of his strangely odd blue toned cat Happy who instead of meowing like a normal cat, squeaked out sounds that sounded like he was saying “Aye”.

 

“Good.” Erza said smiling slightly and nodding her head at them. And so the morning continued as it normally does, with their large group of friends laughing loudly and making other students want to avoid that stretch of hallway due to the risk of potentially being caught up in a harmless wrestle or just wanting to avoid a headache due to the mere high noise level the group created.

 

Eventually the first bell rung, warning the students that they have five minutes before they will be late for their first period classes, meaning the group of friends all grabbed their books and said their good byes as they parted, the seniors and the juniors, including Natsu and Lucy, saying good bye until they saw them again at lunch, where the group would come together again and cause just as much chaos in the cafeteria as they caused in what Natsu, Gray and a few other boys had claimed to be ‘Fairy Tail’s hallway’ that morning. How the group came up with the name Fairy Tail to dub themselves was beyond Gray and when he and Lucy had tried to ask, they were just confused to multiple different stories, some more realistic than others, but they never got the same answer from more than one person.

 

Gray said his goodbyes before turning off to walk to his first class, books in his hand and the other hand stuffed in his pocket, the expression on his face reading ‘I don’t give two shits about anything’, which he really didn’t, but much to his surprise, this demeanor had been fairly popular among the female population at this school and he had grown what Lucy would joke as a ‘fan base’. Love letters occasionally in his locker, girls blushing when he made eye contact with them and giggling and whispering in their group of friends stealing glances when they thought he wasn’t looking. In all honesty, Gray found in annoying, the girls were too much like those figure skating girls he detested.

 

Rolling his eyes at the batch of girls who were putting a damper on his good morning mood, he caught sight of a head of blue hair at the end of the hall, making him frown as he felt a rush of something he could only describe as nostalgia wash over him. Seeing blue hair in the halls of Magnolia high wasn’t something new, he even had a few blue haired friends in Fairy Tail, but he knew none of them had classes down in the section he was in. Shrugging it off, he completely forgot about it as he entered his classroom and sat down at his seat in the back and prepared himself for his morning math class.

 

The first two periods of school passed uneventfully for Gray, got back a test with another average grade, realised he hadn’t finished the homework that was due for today, the usual things really. When the bell for lunch finally rang, Gray swore it was more of a sweet jingle than an obnoxious blare.

 

Sauntering in to the cafeteria that was a gym when it wasn’t the lunch period, Gray immediately looked over to the table in the far back that the janitors have just learned to push together three of the lunch tables that were put out before every lunch and taken away as soon as it finished for students to use the gym for its actual purpose, and saw the beginning of his group of friends had started to gather.

 

Currently, Levy McGarden, Gajeel Redfox, Cana Alberona, Lucy and Natsu were seated at the conjoined tables, eating their respective lunches, talking away and occasionally laughing at something somebody would say.

 

Levy McGarden was a junior who was very close with Lucy, probably due to their mutual love for reading, and dating aforementioned Gajeel Redfox; an intimidating guy who was also a junior whose face was donned with multiple piercings covering his face and even something he called dermal piercings which covered his arms. He had once told Gray that he had grown up in a rough neighbourhood and got involved in things he shouldn’t have, that his life before he came to Magnolia high and met all of Fairy Tail was less than ideal; it kind of reminded Gray of himself. Although, how Levy and Gajeel had even come to start dating was a mystery to Gray that he didn’t even attempt to delve into the depths of their romantic relationships to figure out, as the two appeared to be complete opposites, though they seemed to work well together. Or at least that’s what he gathered from what Lucy would tell him when she would start talking about anything and everything, despite knowing Gray was hardly half listening.

 

As for Cana Alberona, she a fellow senior as well as another girl who had connected with fairly quickly, although not as close as Lucy, their personalities seemed to mesh well and when they shared a class, they always partnered up to do group projects. Cana was a very different sort of girl, she wore a floor length skirt instead of the given shorter school skit, was often drunk and sneaking alcohol into school, bringing it in water bottles and travel mugs, getting away with it because her ever loving father was the vice principal of their high school.

 

He walked by their table on his way to the lunch line, giving them a quick wave before proceeding on his way to line up. He always bought his lunch, it was cheap and he was way too lazy to be making his lunch every morning. Lucy had told him multipile times to just make it in the evening before going to bed, but he was too lazy for that too. Sometimes, if he was lucky, his manager and also older sister to the two other Strauss siblings that were in Fairy Tail, would make him his own lunch which would more be a two course meal than the usual serving of cold pasta salad he would pick up at the caf.

 

After picking up and paying for his usual, Gray headed back over to the table, glancing over the heads of other students to get a glimpse of his group which had grown in number and now sat Erza and her boyfriend Jellal Fernandes, Wendy Marvel, a freshman and Natsu’s adoptive sister, Romeo Conbolt, also a freshman and son to the freshman and sophomores boys’ gym coach, and Lisanna Strauss, another junior.

 

Not looking where he was going, he bumped into someone shorter than he was, and who obviously was not expecting him to run right into them, as they let out a sound of surprise and as he looked down, he saw the girl stumble a few steps back before gaining her balance, nervous eyes shooting up to meet his, giving him a jolt of recognition when their gazes met.

 

“Juvia is very sorry! She did not mean to run into you look that.” The blue haired girl from the previous night clutched the water bottle she was holding in her hand tightly while bowing to him slightly, eyes looking intensely at the ground, shoulders tense like she was waiting for him to start yelling at her. He may have let out an annoyed “Watch where you’re going” on any other day, but he was still in shock over seeing this girl that he had met and raced against for ice time just last night.

 

“Hey, you’re that girl!” He exclaimed instead of snipping at her. She looked back up at him with a confused face similar to a look he had been given before racing her.

 

“What?” She looked nervous and unwilling to meet his gaze for more than a few seconds at a time, and her voice matched these nerves.

 

“Last night, you and I raced at the community ice rink to see who could stay and use the rink for themselves.” He explained to her, though she still looked confused.

 

“I-I know.” She stuttered out.

 

“Well, I didn’t know you went to the same school as I did.” Gray said this as though it was the most obvious thing in the world. She took a second before the confusion left her face, replaced first by a sad lost puppy kind of look, and then to a look of sad understanding and unwilling acceptance of something he didn’t understand, and it may have been a trick of the light, but Gray could’ve sworn he say tears collecting at the corners of her blue eyes, threatening to spill over, before she looked towards the floor once again, and muttered,

 

“Juvia is in your first period mathematics class,”. _Was she really?_   Was all Gray could think as he started to feel more and more like a prize a asshole as the seconds ticked by.

 

“Oh.” Was all he said. With one last quick look into his eyes, she continued on her way, brushing by him while saying “Juvia will go now”. All he could do was stare after her feeling like a dick, before accepting defeat and turning back to his table, plopping himself down between Lucy and Erza.

 

“Who was that blue haired girl you were talking to Gray?” Lucy asked as he sat to right.

 

“Hm? Oh I don’t know, just some girl that I bumped into.” Well it wasn’t all a lie. Scanning the cafeteria, he found her seated by the table that everyone hated, the table that was closest to the doors that led to the outdoors as it let out a draft something fierce, and even Gray who was impervious to the cold, didn’t enjoy sitting there. She wasn’t alone, although she looked far from what other people looked like when sitting and chatting with their friends at lunch period, she sat with three other guys; one very large and old looking guy who Gray knew only because he was the only blind kid at their school, another lankier guy with odd green hair and a freaky moustache, and the third guy was one who Gray actually knew; Totomaru, a bad kid with tattoos on his face and parts of his hair bleached white who Gray only knew because he often had run ins with Natsu and Gajeel talked about him being a part of the group he used to run with before he changed his life around.

 

But all that Gray really noticed was how Juvia looked utterly bored, devastated and like she wanted to be anywhere but at that table at the same time. He watched her as she would take a sip from her water and attempt to be intrigued by whatever Totomaru was boasting about but he could tell she could care about it and caught her staring off into space with a longing look he was sure he wore sometimes when he was stuck in a boring lesson and was day dreaming about being on ice.

 

Eventually, he was pulled out of his own creepy watching of this Juvia girl and back into a debate that his Fairy Tail friends were having, and was soon involved and she was put out of his mind. But when he was picking up his garbage at the end of lunch, about to head back to his locker and prepare for his third period class, he couldn’t help but notice there was conveniently a single empty place at their three combined tables.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hope you enjoyed chapter two! Reminder that these chapters and the next one are already published on ff.net and they will be updated weekly until it's completely caught up and then I will sincerely apologize because I am truly a shitty updater :3


	3. A Helping Hand

The next Tuesday morning passed uneventfully for Gray, or as uneventful as being a part of the rambunctious Fairy Tail group could get. But through the shouting, loud laughter and occasional friendly wrestle, Gray found his thoughts wandering to his close approaching math class, and when the bell rung, it brought his mind out of the conversation he was having with Loke Celeste, a fellow senior and notoriously known as their schools Playboy, and also number one on the school’s list of ‘Boys I Want to Date’.

 

Saying his goodbyes to his friends, Gray made his way over to his classroom in record time, having an actual motivation to go. True to her word, the blue haired girl sat near the back of the classroom, ahead one and to the right of his desk by the window, making her seated diagonally in front of him. He supressed an inner grown as a voice in his head, that sounded surprisingly like Lucy’s, chastised him for being so oblivious to everything. 

 

“So you are in this class.” Gray remarked to her as he passed her desk, dropping his books on his desk before plopping down into the chair, one hand still resting in the pocket of his school issued black slacks. Juvia seemed slightly shocked at being addressed, especially as it was none other than Gray Fullbuster, the boy who walked past her desk every day of the school year thus far without saying anything.

 

“Uh, y-yes Juvia was not lying,” She said sounding and looking very shocked at being spoken to and confused as to why she was being spoken to, adding her blushing face, Gray had to remark that she sort of resembled a lost and awkward puppy.  “Juvia has been in this class since the beginning of the school year.” She ducked her head and turned to face the front, eyes trained on the notebook she had been doodling on before Gray had entered the classroom, assuming he was done talking to her, and had only spoken to her because he had nothing to do for the next three minutes before the bell rang signalling the start of class.

 

His mistaken silence was actually Gray trying to rid the image of the disappointed look the Lucy in his mind was giving him for, again, being ridiculously oblivious to his surroundings. He did kick himself a little, feeling like an asshole again for being so rude to this girl.

 

“Hey,” Gray said suddenly, sitting up slightly from his sudden curiosity. Juvia was not expecting him to speak up, and so suddenly at that that she jumped slightly in her seat, turning quickly towards him, eyes wide. “Why were you hanging out with that Totomaru guy yesterday at lunch? That guy is bad business.”

 

At that moment, the teacher walked into the room, leaving Gray with only Juvia’s confused look and furrowed brow as a response, mouth poised open to utter out the answer to his question but she was drowned out by their teacher’s greeting, forcing her to turn and face the front.

 

The morning continued as it usually would, with the exception of Juvia, whose mind pondering why a grumpy boy who liked to ice skate was asking her questions about her friends let alone talking to her in the first place, and Gray whose mind didn’t immediately start day dreaming about being on the ice and instead thought of the stuttering blue haired girl for a few minutes before following his usual thought process of hockey and wondering when the next time he would get some rink time in.

 

The end of class depicted a much more regular scene; Gray shot up from his chair the moment he heard the bell ring walking coolly out of class, one hand in his pocket and the other gripping his books. Juvia took her time gathering her things, much preferring to doddle and wait until everyone left before trailing out of her class by herself. Today proved differently though, instead of her head bowed down towards her desk, short hair curtaining her face despite it only being long enough to brush just past her jaw line, she kept her head up, eyes following Gray out the classroom door, curious to see if he would remember that he was in the middle of asking her a question before, but unsurprisingly enough he seemed to have completely forgotten.

 

Heading out of the classroom head dropping to a more familiar position, and books clutched to her chest, Juvia trailed the last person out as per usual; even though Gray had talked to her once or twice didn’t make her life an different, or so she reminded herself while heading to her locker to exchange her math textbook and binder for her English binder and the current book they were studying in class, ‘ _Fifth Business’_.

 

Juvia had always been a bit of a klutz off the ice, so it wasn’t really anything new to her when she turned around after shutting her locker to run right into someone else and promptly fall back right on her butt, her books falling from her arms and pencil case spilling out its contents. Sighing, she started to collect her things, stuffing her pens and pencils back in small blue fabric pencil case which was falling apart, hence the initial spillage of her writing utensils, straightened her binder out, fixing the papers that had been folded when they landed in a mess, and looked around for her novel, expecting it to be in near her but saw the telltale cover of her school loaned book halfway across the hallway. Getting off of her butt and instead on her hands and knees crawling a few paces before reaching her hand out to pick up her book. But before she could even touch the glossy cover, another more masculine hand reached down and picked it up. Juvia frowned, whenever this happened to her, which was quite a bit, no one had ever bother to help her out before.

 

Looking up quickly, and almost giving herself whiplash while at it, Juvia found herself looking up at the face of the one and only Gray Fullbuster, who was looking at her with what she couldn’t tell was confusion, amusement or bewilderment, or maybe a mix of all those things.

 

“The floor isn’t exactly known for its cleanliness you know,” He said handing Juvia her book before offering her hand to help her up, which she took after looking at it blankly for a minute. Standing up, books under one arm, she used the other to dust off her plaid school uniform skirt and black tights. “You shouldn’t let people push you around like that. Even if it was an accident, you should stand up for yourself.” He told her, gaze firm and holding eye contact. Of course he was used to talking to many different people and she rarely spoke to anyone she didn’t know, so the prolonged eye contact made a blush find its way across her pale cheeks.

 

“Thank you.” Juvia choked out when she noticed that he hadn’t been marveling about eye contact with strangers or how possibly maybe the stranger had very nice eyes, and instead was carrying on with his life and had continued walking down the hallway. She mentally kicked herself because her gratitude had been expressed in a voice that sounded small and very quiet, not the way she wanted it to come out at all. But she was really too preoccupied to get down on herself too much as she was too busy staring after Gray for the second time that day, except this time more in awe than out of curiosity, eyes widening a fraction when, without turning around, lifted one hand in the air in a half wave, acknowledging that he had heard her ‘thank you’.

 

When she realised she had been standing there staring after him for longer than was probably considered normal, she turned to head to her next class, walking in a daze, similar to how she might have felt after being in a dark room for a long time and having someone turn on the lights quickly and without warning.

 

Their respective second period classes were dull and uneventful, although neither of them were expecting any different.  When the lunch bell rang, they were both glad to have a break in classes, Gray happy to see his friend who he shared very few classes with, and Juvia so she could just take a break from constantly pay attention to whatever her teacher was saying.

 

“Hey Gray!” Gray heard Lucy’s voice say as he opened his locker to deposit his books. Turning his head to her direction, he didn’t get a chance to greet her back before she got on to what she really wanted to say, something he was used to her doing. “Why were you in such a rush to get to class this morning? I was talking to Levy about it this morning, and she thinks it’s because of a girl. What do you have to say for yourself Gray?” She smirked at him smugly.

 

“Huh?” Was all he could say in reply, completely astonished about how his friends had come up with this idea, and no doubt a whole scheme behind it and probably some way to set him up with this ‘mystery girl’.

 

“But we couldn’t figure out who it would be. I mean obviously a senior who’s in your first period class, but we didn’t think you really knew anybody else in that class. No one in Fairy Tail is in there, and we’ve never seen you talk with anyone outside of Fairy Tail. So spill, we’re already onto you so no use holding it back now.” By this point he had already half tuned her out, instead thinking amusingly that he actually had rushed off to see a girl. But no way was he telling Lucy that, she would get the wrong impression, missing by miles and making his life harder than it already was, involving a girl he had spoken to about three times.

 

“Lucy I don’t even know what you’re talking about,” He started to say before Natsu bound up to her without even sparing a glance at Gray.

 

“Hey Luce! What are you talking about?” His overly loud voice got under Gray’s skin, as it normally does.

 

“I was just asking Gray about-“ she was saying before cut off by Natsu grumbling something about Gray and how he didn’t really care about his life before kissing her on her half open mouth, ensuing a full make out session in the middle of the hall, something Gray still hadn’t gotten used to and would rather never see again in his life if he had a say about it. With a disgusted look on his face, he promptly turned around and greeted Loke and Cana who had found their way over to him.

 

The group eventually made their way over to the cafeteria after being joined from a now more G-rated Lucy and Natsu, Levy and Lisanna Strauss, younger sister of Gray’s manager, Mirajane, and proceeded to head over to their make shift, large lunch table.

 

“Hey Gray,” Lisanna said turning to him sticking a hand into her bag and rummaging around looking for something. “Mira made a lunch for you today and told me to give it to you. She said something about needing your energy for tonight.” She had found what she was looking for, and that happened to be a medium sized container stuffed to the brim with what Gray felt was more like a dinner sized portion than a lunch. Taking it from her out stretched hand, Gray couldn’t help but feel like there was going to be some negative to this luxury of one of Mirajane’s delicious homemade lunches.

 

“Tonight?” He muttered to himself as their group sat at the table. He had been scheduled for a shift that night, but why he needed extra energy he didn’t have a clue. As far as he knew, it was a free skate night, meaning lots of couples and a few groups of teenagers but nothing like a Hell like weekend full of figure skaters, hockey brats and little kids galore.

 

Gray put it out of his mind as he dug into his lunch which consisted of a few chicken wings, rice and a serving of stir fried vegetables that were to die for. And he felt like he almost did when he took his first large mouth full of fried onions and peppers mixed with rice and groaned out in satisfaction, “Lisanna, tell Mira that she’s a cooking goddess and also my favourite person ever.” He told his friend who sat across from him through a mouthful of food, eliciting some laughs and complaints of getting a full view of half chewed food from his friends.

 

Across the cafeteria, a nervous Juvia walked through the doors into the student filled area. She had told herself not only five minutes ago when she saw a head of black hair walking in the direction of where she is currently standing, that she would thank him for helping her out earlier that day. Scanning the room, it wasn’t hard to find him sitting at the loudest group of people in the caf. He was talking and laughing loudly with the rest of his friends, some stray grains of rice stuck to the corner of his mouth. Even with food on his face, Juvia tried to stop herself from noting how attractive he looked, something she had been trying not to notice since first period that morning.

 

Steeling herself, Juvia took a deep breath and gripped the bottle of water that she held tightly in her hands before starting to walk over to the large Fairy Tail group. She weaved between the crowded tables, trying not to bump into anyone who was sitting down and slipping quietly around people as to not draw attention to herself.

 

She was only one table away when Gray looked up and made eye contact with her, making her cheeks fail her and blush a bright red and a small squeak or surprise escape from between her lips. All of a sudden she felt that she couldn’t go over to him even after the time she spent prepping herself for that moment and instead she quickly sat down at the relatively empty table she was standing beside. She became very interested in the water bottle she was holding in her hands, examining the marks she had made with a sharpie to indicate the contents level.

 

From the corner of her eye, she could see Gray’s table and two girls she mildly recognized turn in their seats to look at her. Occasionally they would turn back slightly to say something to Gray who was frowning slightly as he continued to eat, eyes going from his meal to the girls to her. The girls had wide smiles on their faces that looked quite devious, and something told Juvia that she wouldn’t want to get involved as she could almost see the gears turning in their heads as they devised a plan of some sort.

 

Across from Juvia at the Fairy Tail table, Lucy and Lisanna were up to no good, or that’s how Gray saw it anyway. They were turned almost a 180 degrees where they sat on the cafeteria bench across from him, staring down Juvia with inquisitive eyes. He sighed exasperatedly, knowing that when he accidentally made eye contact with the girl only minutes earlier when she was walking towards the table she was now seated at, his two close friends would of course jump to conclusions.

 

“Is that the girl you went to see this morning?” Lucy asked, briefly turning back to face Gray, a smile on her face.

 

“She is quite cute don’t you think, Lucy?” Lisanna mused, also turning around to throw Gray a quick wink. “You have good taste, Gray.”

 

“For the last time I didn’t go to see any girl, I just went to class.” Gray grumbled, shoving some more rice in his mouth. He really couldn’t let them know he kind of did go to class to see a girl, and it actually was the girl they were scrutinizing he went to see.

 

“I don’t think I recognize her, I thought I knew most of the seniors too,” Lucy remarked frowning and turning back to face Gray, Lisanna following suit. “Is she a sophomore?”

 

“What? No!” Gray exclaimed, before pausing and realising how that sounded. “I don’t know, I don’t know the girl.”

 

Lisanna then let out an ‘Oh!’ of sudden realisation. “I think that’s Juvia Lockser, she’s in the same year as us. She’s just really quite a lot of the time and takes a few senior classes because she was home schooled or something. I heard she was kind of weird.” She made a face and put her chin in her hand and picked at a lunch that was similar to Gray’s.

 

“She’s a junior?” Lucy asked surprised. “Wow now I feel bad for not knowing her.” The two girls sat in silence for a moment, musing over the new information. Gray was just thankful for a break in the conversation and was hoping that Natsu or someone else would take a notice in the three of them and decide to pull them into a new conversational topic.

 

But alas, luck wasn’t on his side when Lucy’s eyes drifted over to the empty spot beside Gray and her face lit up. “We should ask her to come sit with us!” She said happily. “It looks like she’s sitting by herself over there, I’m sure she would like to talk to someone.”

 

“Hang on,” Gray started to say, growing slightly more wary as Lisanna’s brightened face showed her openness to the idea. “That’s really not necessary, I’m sure she’s fine there.” He trailed off near the end, knowing that whatever he said was for naught and his two friends definitely weren’t listening to him.

 

Just as they were getting up to walk over to Juvia and invite her over, the loud bell signalling the end of lunch and five minutes until the start of the next class rang and Gray was instantly relieved. Lucy and Lisanna could make whatever friends they wanted, he just didn’t want to be pulled into their matchmaking schemes; they were never pretty.

 

“Oh look at that, time to go.” With a slightly devious smile he hopped off his spot at the table and grabbed his empty dishware. “I’ll wash this and return it to Mira tonight.” He said to Lisanna before taking off, waving goodbye to the rest of his friends and catching up to Loke who was walking ahead.

 

Back in the cafeteria, Juvia was scolding herself for wimping out at the last second. It was something that she always did; she was shy and not very confrontational. Sighing, she slowly lifted herself from the her lonely spot at the table, noticing that most of the other students had already filed out of the busy room, grabbed her water bottle and followed the stragglers out.

 

Walking towards her locker, her head down, Juvia was not expecting for two very cheerful girls to quite suddenly invade her personal space.

 

“Hi!” The girl with blonde hair and bright brown eyes greeted in a louder voice than she expected, making Juvia jerk back in surprise and snap out of whatever she had been thinking of at the time.

 

“Uh…” Juvia said dumbly, the girls just kept smiling at her making Juvia wonder if their cheeks would start hurting from smiling so hard.

 

“My name’s Lucy and this is Lisanna.” Lucy greeted, motioning a hand from herself to the girl with the short silver hair, Lisanna who waved her hand slightly at Juvia. “You’re Juvia right?” Flustered, Juvia nodded quickly, still wary of the two girls.

 

“It’s nice to meet you Juvia,” Lisanna said. Juvia murmured a similar pleasantry. “So Lucy and I figured since we’re in the same grade and we’ve never met each other we thought we’d introduce ourselves.”

 

“Yeah and we saw you sitting alone at lunch today and thought you might want to sit with us and our friends.” Lucy continued for Lisanna. Juvia could only stare at the girls, half intimidated and half impressed by how quickly they talked and finished each other’s ideas.

 

It was only then that Juvia actually processed what they were saying instead of standing in shock that someone other than the three acquaintances she had actually initiated a conversation with her.  That and they were inviting her to do something with them, as friends and not as anything else. Plus it was an added bonus that these two girls were friends with Gray, and eating lunch with them meant eating lunch with Gray; her heart quickened at the thought.

 

“Juvia would enjoy that, thank you.” She said quietly, making the Fairy Tail girls’ faces light up even more which Juvia didn’t even think was possible.

 

“Great!” Lisanna said. “We’ll meet you at your locker tomorrow before lunch, kay?” And before Juvia had a chance to respond, they sauntered away throwing good byes over their shoulders as they headed to their next classes respectively. She continued on her way when she realised that they probably didn’t even know where her locker was. Letting herself smile a little, Juvia reflected on how weird the encounter was, but still how grateful she was that it had happened.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I find that this chapter is a little slow but you get to see a little from Juvia's perspective~ next chapter will be back at the rink and more skating goodness :3 also next chapter will be caught up with where I'm at with ff.net so now updates will be slow and I apologize


	4. Conversations

Mira was right when she said Gray would need his energy for work that night. As it turns out, the free skate was cancelled, or so the sign on the front doors stated. Normally, Gray would be glad; that would mean it was a hockey practice night. A few teams would come in and do practice and for the most part Gray would relax and just watch them practice, occasionally getting a coffee for a parent. Sure it sucked because he would be mad with jealousy over the fact that they were out there enjoying themselves while he was unsatisfyingly on concrete instead of the ice, but it was much better than the chaos of a free skate. But tonight was different, there were no mini vans parked outside or kids dragging bags twice their size through the doors when Gray arrived at the rink after school.

 

He walked through the heavy doors and was greeted by the already overly air conditioned lobby. The rubber mats were the same, the overwhelming smell of sweat, air conditioning, ice and rubber was still there as were the harsh fluorescent lights, but something seemed slightly different to him. Maybe it was the fact that there were hardly any people around, or that the ones who were around were over dressed for a community ice rink for crying out loud. The tables that were set up along one wall with real, not plastic, table cloths on them were also out of place, and definitely confused Gray.

 

With a frown on his face, he headed over to Mira’s office where he was supposed to pick up the key to unlock the canteen, observing the people in dress pants and office clothes as he went. For the most part, they ignored him; though he really wasn’t expecting them to pay him any attention, he was kind of used to it.

 

He knocked lightly on the door twice before pushing it open. Normally, Mira would be seated at her desk either on the phone or typing at her computer, but usually she was relaxed. The sight that he was greeted with now was quite the opposite of relaxed; there were stacks of piper piled up all over her desk, most of which leaning to severely he was surprised they hadn’t fallen over yet, the phone was ringing and judging by the flashing lights on it, there were several other calls waiting, and Mira herself was scrubbing furiously at one of the whiteboard signs the rink had to advertise the weekly special, or directions when they had a special event.

 

Her head whipped around at the sound of the door open and Gray caught the crazy look in her eyes that he had only ever seen once before when some kids let three live chickens into the rink as a prank.

 

“Uh, is this a bad time?” He asked her cautiously, ready to run out the door in case she started throwing various objects at him. He didn’t think he had done anything wrong, but he could never be sure.

 

“Gray,” She said like she just realised it was him. She straightened up and continued, “No. No, no you’re perfect, just in time actually. After you go open the canteen, I need you to come back and help me set up some signs.” She shoved the key in his hands.

 

“Yeah sure,” He started hesitantly. “But don’t you want me to do food prep? Hockey nights aren’t as bad as free skates but I still gotta do some work.”

 

“What?” Mira looked confused. “Oh no, no tonight’s not a hockey night either. Here, walk with me.” She led him out of her office and started walking with him to the canteen back door. “Tonight’s a special night, which is why I’m running around like a chicken with its head cut off and we have these nice people in our lobby. You know how there’s the figure skating club that uses the rink? And how the older groups are always very secretive because they compete in large competitions?” Gray kept nodding to these questions, not liking where this was heading. “Well near the middle of the older skater’s training season, they have an open house of sorts for the parents to come in and some school scouts to see how things are progressing.”

 

Gray groaned. “And that night is tonight.” He hated figure skating brats, he hated their parents and he definitely hated scouts who wanted to give scholarships to teenagers who came from rich families and were the last ones that needed a full ride to some prestigious university or college. If he had known this was the kind of shift he was in for, he would’ve conveniently planned to be sick.

 

Mira gave him a sympathetic look as they stopped in front of the canteen door. “I know the figure skating crowd isn’t your favourite crowd, but do try just for tonight. They are one of the bigger reasons this rink can afford such a high quality Zamboni.” She talked to him in a hushed voice, as to not let the other patrons in the lobby over hear them.

 

“You could’ve at least given me a warning so I could prepare myself for a night of bullshit.” Gray grumbled unlocking the door with the key she had previously given him.

 

“What? And prompted you to get a sudden fatal illness that stopped you from working tonight? I don’t think so.” She teased him, with a knowing smile on her face that almost Gray feel guilty for thinking it before. “Put your stuff away and meet me back in my office.” With a gentle pat on his back, Mira was off. Once she was safely behind her office door, Gray groaned for what already felt like the hundredth time and banged his head against the concrete wall. He was in for a long night.

 

Once his bag was safely put underneath the counter of the canteen and the metal barrier between the ordering window and the actual rink was open, Gray went back to Mira. And so he spent the next half hour or so helping her write directions on sings and position them all over the lobby, inside the rink and just outside the front doors. In that time, the lobby filled up even more, as he was told by Mira, all the coaches and scouts were present and ready to begin the even and that the skaters and their parents would be arriving momentarily.

 

And so they did. Gray was setting up the last of the signs in the lobby when he saw the first skaters and parents come through the door. As expected, the parents were dressed in the nicest of clothes, some fathers even donned suits and the mothers all wore high heels he knew were extremely out of place at a skating rink. The skaters, mostly girls though a smattering of boys too, had their hair pulled back into pony tails or buns and wore overly expensive track suits or yoga pants and jackets with the club’s logo embroidered into them.

 

Most of them arrived in large numbers, all at once. It made him wonder if they traveled in packs. Gray was barely holding back a sneer as they all piled in, only because Mira was there greeting many of them alongside their coaches and knew she would have his head if he did. So he kept his head down, even as he finished setting up the last of the signs, standing up and turning around, starting to head back to the canteen where he would be left relatively in peace. Keeping your head down, though, doesn’t let you know where you’re going, so he wasn’t all the surprised when he ran right into someone.

 

“Shit,” Was the first thing out of Gray’s mouth. He reached out to steady the person, noting that they were close to falling backwards. “I’m sorry I wasn’t look—what are you going here?” He had gotten a good look at the person and noticed that it was none other than the odd girl, Juvia. She was dressed similarly to the other skaters that had already come in; black yoga pants, a black track jacket with the club’s logo on it that was so big on her he wasn’t sure it was actually hers and her hair hanging loose, Gray assumed because it was too short to fit in a ponytail.

 

He supposed it was the fact that he had just ran into her head first but her cheeks were flushed red, he was beginning to wonder if they were always like that, and she looked back at him with wide, blue eyes. “Juvia is going to her skating practice.” She replied with a shaky voice.

 

It was like he had just remembered how they first met. He was just surprised that she belonged to such a pretentious skating club. “Seriously? You skate with these guys?” He asked.

 

She was a little taken aback by his question and directed her gaze to the floor, shifting her feet. “Juvia’s father owns the club. Juvia may not be the best but she isn’t terrible and she would really like to improve.” She said trailing off a little at the end. It occurred to Gray how his previous question sounded, and how there was the possibility of her thinking he didn’t think she was good enough to skate with them.

 

Making an annoyed face, mostly annoyed with how he had to go and offend this girl, he rubbed at the back of his neck with one hand. He was about to apologize and clear up that he didn’t mean it like that when the sight of silver hair caught his eye.

 

Looking over Juvia’s head, he saw the last person he ever thought he would see again make his way over to the two of them. He stopped and didn’t even spare Gray a glance as he put a hand on Juvia’s back and said,

 

“Come on Juvia, if you don’t hurry we’ll be late.” It was only then that he seemed to realise Gray was even standing there. As soon as they met eyes, the atmosphere around the three changed to a tension so thick Gray wouldn’t be surprise if everyone else in the lobby could feel it. It was Lyon Vastia, Gray’s ex-adoptive brother.  

 

“Lyon,” was all Gray said in a mixture of shock and annoyance that he had to see him again. Lyon’s expression had changed from calm and pleasant to annoyed and angry.

 

“Gray,” He replied angrily. While they had something similar to a stare off, Juvia was looking between the two, extremely confused.

 

“Eh? Lyon and Gray know each other?” She asked, hoping one of them would clear up what was happening between the two.

 

“You might say that,” Lyon replied tensely, still locking eyes with Gray.  Gray was still in minor shock; the last time he saw Lyon wasn’t exactly the happiest of days. Part of the reason Gray moved to Canada instead of staying in the States where he used to live with his foster family, was to make sure he would never see any of those people again, including Lyon.

 

He broke eye contact to give Lyon a quick look over, he wore the figure skating club’s track pants but instead of the jacket to match, he just wore a regular white t shirt. Gray smirked.

 

“Still playing a girl’s sport I see.” He used to make fun of Lyon mercilessly for his choice in hobby and it never failed to piss Lyon off.

 

“Still jealous because I have actual talent I see.” Lyon replied, his gaze turning into a glare. The two glared at each other and Juvia felt increasingly more uncomfortable.

 

“Juvia,” A strong voice called out from behind her, she almost felt relieved that someone came to relieve the tension.

 

A tall man with a mustache and a creepy smile walked up to the trio and placed a hand on Juvia’s shoulder, giving a quick but menacing look to Lyon, who took his hand off her back and took a step away.

 

“You don’t have time to talk to the staff, Juvia. You have a practice to get ready for, now run along.” The man had a slimy sounding voice that gave Gray the creeps; he didn’t like him one bit, and he didn’t even know his name.

 

With a shy look from Juvia and a glare from Lyon, the two kept walking toward the changing rooms where the rest of the skaters had disappeared to moments before. As Juvia passed him, Gray couldn’t help but notice the last name stitched into the right sleeve of the jacket she was wearing: Vastia. He couldn’t say exactly why, but it pissed him off to no end that she was wearing Lyon’s jacket.

 

Once they were headed on their way, Gray looked up to the tall man and wasn’t exactly sure whether he should stay and chat or just walk away. If it were up to him, he would walk away without a care in the world, but upsetting one of these pretentious bastards would not be okay in Mira’s books.

 

The man just looked back to him, all attempts at pleasantries were dropped and he looked at Gray like he was the dirt on his shoes. “Don’t you have work to do, boy?” He sneered at him. Gray made up his mind that he hated him.

 

Just barely biting back a retort, he glared at the man and brushed past him to the canteen where he promptly walked in and slammed the door behind him. He stood there grumbling about stupid rich people and stupid Lyon while he started prepping. The cool air that came in from the rink helped calm him down, but he was still too rattled by seeing Lyon again and annoyed with the greasy man to really remember his unexpected encounter with Juvia.

 

In fact it wasn’t until about ten minutes later when the skaters started to warm up on the ice and the parents and scouts were taking their seats among the stands that he remembered she was skating that night. And that was because she came stumbling up to the window, obviously having trouble walking with blade-protected skates against the rubber mats. She leaned up against the counter, not wanting to support herself on wobbly feet, and they looked at each other blankly for a moment before Gray spoke up,

 

“Something I can get you?” A light blush covered her cheeks and she broke eye contact. One hand dug through the tight zip up hoodie she was now wearing and produced some change.

 

“Just a bottle of water please,” She handed over the change as he rang up her order through the register. Reaching into the fridge where all the drinks were kept, he handed her the water which she gladly accepted.

 

“Good luck out there,” he remarked, casually looking over her shoulder to the other skaters who were warming up.

 

“T-Thanks,” She stuttered out, surprised. As she walked away, Gray dragged his eyes from the rink to watch her retreating figure and tried to ignore the part of him that appreciated the way her dark leggings hugged her ass, showing off how it curved just right. He tried especially harder when she bent over to remove her skate guards and place them next to her sports bag on a bench by one of the entrances to the rink. He blamed it on the fact that he was a teenage boy and it would be nearly impossible to not notice a nice butt every once and again.   

 

Once she stepped onto the ice, she glided effortlessly with a few strides and a new sense of confidence he remembered the first time he had seen her skate the other night. He noted how her shoulders dropped slightly and her chin was lifted a little higher. His eyes followed her as she glided around, and even when she skated right up to Lyon, who was also skating along the ice, dressed in the same white t shirt as before and similar tight, black pants as Juvia.

 

Gray smirked to himself at that, and almost ached to make fun of him for that one. But the feeling was quickly thrown off as he saw Juvia and Lyon take each other’s hands and begin to skate in synch. They made a few rounds of the rink before the faced each other, this time taking up both of the other’s hands and started to make their way in tighter circles, doing crossovers with their feet, all the while keeping concentration as they stared each other in the eyes.

 

They continued there warm up that way, sometimes facing each other and skating in perfect unison, or Lyon would be behind Juvia and they were facing the same direction, his hands on her waist to steady her as she glided on one foot, the other out to the side and her arms stretched out gracefully. He didn’t know why, but it really irked him seeing them skating like that, he put it down to having an immense distaste for Lyon, but it made him turn away from the rink completely, throwing all his focus on readying coffee and tea for the parents. At least he knew they weren’t dating now, or probably not anyway, they were just skating partner. All the less, he made a mental note to pester Juvia tomorrow at school for more information about his used-to-be-brother.

 

The next two hours were spent doing odd jobs around the canteen, mostly to do with cleaning as the parents and scouts weren’t exactly huge fans of cheap tea and coffee. It made it harder to not watch the skaters practice and show off their best for the scouts. For the most part, Gray would just roll his eyes at the boys and girls, even those in pairs that would smile extra big, throw winks and just come across as so much more fake than usual to impress the scouts. And from what he saw of those sitting in the stands, it worked for them.

 

But it was harder to keep his eyes from watching one pair in particular; Juvia and Lyon worked their way from demonstrating how effortlessly they made skating in synch look to some quite impressive throws and lifts. He was proud to say though, that despite Lyon taking apart in doing his best to show off for the scouts, Juvia appeared to have forgotten that the practice was an extra special one where scouts were attending, and looked to be off in her own world most of the time.

 

By the time the practice had wrapped up, Gray was more than glad to clean out the pots and heaters that had kept the beverages warm. Unfortunately, he had spent the majority of his time cleaning so now that it was closing time, no cleaning had to be done. That and apparently competitive figure skaters and parents had bad habits of sticking around to chat. This meant no sneaking on to the ice for his own skating time for a while, and required a lot of stalling, now that his excuse of cleaning up was gone.

 

So to kill time, Gray insisted on helping Mira take down signs, do small jobs, even insisted on staying longer when Mira said he was free to go home early. Although, Gray couldn’t tell if she said that out of consideration for him or because he was moving at the pace of a snail and doing a half-assed job at helping out.

 

In the time spent in and around the lobby, Gray was met with numerous glares, mostly coming from Lyon, which he gladly returned, but even a few coming from the creepy-smile guy from before, which Gray was also happy to return. It was unpleasant, but he figured it wasn’t too bad.

 

By the time all the figure skaters and their affiliates were out of the arena, and Mira had staggered to her car, dragging her feet with exhaustion, it was late; later than the usual. Gray didn’t mind though, when it came to skating and being irrevocably free for once, he didn’t mind if he lost an hour of two of sleep.

 

So you can imagine his frustration, his anger and his overwhelming sense of desperation when he rummaged through the lost and found box to come up empty handed, the left behind skates he had been borrowing that were so conveniently his size were gone. At first, he just thought he had missed them, prompting him to search a little more viciously through the various discarded items. When that still turned up nothing, Gray actually jumped over the front desk completely, hoping and praying that the skates had just fallen out of the box somehow, that they would be lying on the ground beneath the front counter and he would recover from his minor freak out and carry on with his routine. But it just wasn’t his day; there were no shabby hockey skates underneath the desk and with a look around the general vicinity, the whole reception area was void of the skates.

 

“ _Fuck,_ ” He swore in frustration, straightening up and roughly shoving his hands through his hair, effectively mussing it up so it pointed in every which direction.

 

“Did you lose something?” A voice asked from behind him, surprising him and making him whip around to the direction of the speaker. Sure enough, Juvia was standing on the opposite side of the desk, staring at him with cautious blue eyes.

 

“What are you doing here?” He blurted out, momentarily replacing his anger and panic with confusion as to why she was there when he had almost been certain he was the last one to leave the arena.

 

She shrugged and looked down at her hands before answering, “Juvia likes being at the rink by herself,” Her voice went up at the end, almost like was questioning what she had just said. “It’s calming,” she said the last part more quietly than the first, as if she was trying to defend her choices but wasn’t sure she wanted to defend herself.

 

“Oh,” Was all Gray said in response, too tired and emotionally conflicted to think of something more intelligent to say. They stood there, awkwardly looking at each as the silence dragged on, neither of them knowing what to say or do.

 

“So, did you, um, lose something?” Juvia repeated after the silence was too heavy for her to bear any longer.

 

“Right,” Gray said, looking back down at the ground, as if he just remembered what he was looking for. Slowly, a crease between his eyebrows grew as he frowned deeply, remembering exactly what he was looking for. The skates must have been picked up by their actual owner earlier in the day, which left him with no skates to use and meant that he wasn’t going to be skating until someone else lost a pair of skates in his exact size or he managed to rack up enough money to buy a pair of his own. But with his current financial situation, even the unlikely hood of the former happening was more likely than the latter happening.

 

He remembered that Juvia was still standing there, waiting for a response from the question she had asked twice now. “Yes. Well, no,” He replied to her. “Actually yeah. I mean kind of; you can’t really lose something that’s not yours. Or something you shouldn’t be touching in the first place.” Juvia just nodded, her mouth forming a silent ‘oh’ like she understood what he was saying, but the confusion that was clear across her face was a dead giveaway that what he was blabbering made no sense.

 

“Sorry,” He said dimly, taking the lost and found box off the counter and back in its place beneath the same counter. “I’m not using the rink tonight so if you want extra practice the rink’s all yours.” He mumbled, hopping back over the counter and walking past Juvia towards the rink. He may not be able to skate, but he’d be damned if he wasn’t going to go and brood in the stands and at least enjoy being at the rink despite not being able to skate.  

 

He pushed through the doors and couldn’t help feeling the ache in his chest as he was hit with the cooler air. Ignoring the twinging, Gray made his way to up the stands, to promptly plop down on a hard bench exactly in the middle of the stands.

 

What he didn’t expect was to see Juvia sit down to his left; Gray hadn’t even realised she had followed him out of the lobby and to the stands. He would’ve assumed that after he left the lobby, she would’ve headed to the rink right away, excited by the fact that she could easily have an hour or more of free time and a full rink to herself to practice.

He gave her a look that with no words perfectly conveyed what he was thinking; ‘ _What the fuck are you doing?’_. Too bad she was pointedly not looking at him, more focused on staring at the rink; her cheeks were dusted with a pink that Gray almost believed was a result of being in the colder temperature.

 

“Aren’t you going to skate?” He grumbled at her, mainly confused as to why someone would ever not take a chance to skate.

 

“Juvia already skated today,” She responded, still looking forward.

 

“Do you have a daily skating limit or something?” Gray sneered. Usually he wasn’t this abrasive to those who hadn’t really done anything wrong to him, but combined with his frustration over the skates from the lost and found being taken and rendering him skate-less, he couldn’t help but feel angry that Juvia was perfectly capable to skate her little heart out with her own pair own pair of skates but instead decided to sit with him. It felt like she was mocking him, even though he knew it wasn’t her intention.

 

“N-No. Juvia just thought you needed someone to talk to,” Her guilty face should’ve brought a satisfaction to Gray for successfully making her feel like shit, but instead it just made him feel like shit; more than he already did, anyway.

 

“Well I don’t,” He snapped back. Gray wasn’t one for talking about his feelings. Lucy had been the only one to this date that could get anything beyond a simple ‘I’m in a shitty mood’ out of him, and even then she had to work at getting that much. But he had to admit it, he kind of did want to vent.

 

He was reflecting on how nice the possibility of having someone to just bitch at about everything that was pissing him off seemed to him when Juvia stood up.

 

“Juvia is sorry for disturbing you and she will be leaving now,” She said, slowly walking down the aisle, away from him. “She also hopes you feel better tomorrow.” She added. Gray clenched his teeth at the last part. _‘Damn women and their damn intuition’_ , he thought to himself. Try as he may, although, his annoyance didn’t run deep and didn’t stay around for long, prompting him to speak up just as she reached the end of the aisle and started her descent down the stairs.

 

“Wait, Juvia,” He started, sighing audibly. “I’m sorry I snapped at you, I’m just irritated.” She brightened at hearing this, and started to make her way back to sit down beside him once more. The way that there was a new light in her eyes and a slight bounce in her step reminded Gray of a puppy who had just been told off and but then offered a treat.

 

“So, does Gray want to talk about it?” She asked tilting her head slightly to the right, that he found way too endearing for his own good.

 

“Not really,” He frowned at the way her shoulders dropped slightly. Turning back to face the ice, they sat in silence for a moment before he continued. “I really love skating alright?” From the corner of his eye he saw her perk up again. “I just can’t afford a pair of skates right now and so I’ve been using this pair that was left in the lost and found but they must have been picked up by the owner or something because they’re gone now. So no more skates for me,” He explained, giving her a quick glance out of the corner of his eye; she was practically leaning forward, on the edge of her seat, listening to what he had been saying like he was telling an amazing story instead of a pitiful explanation of why he was upset.  

 

“Juvia is sorry to hear that,” She said with earnest. Gray just shrugged it off; there was a time in his life where he had heard too many people say the exact same thing to him so now the phrase just sounded like a pile of bullshit. “Perhaps there will be another pair of skates left in the lost and found?” She phrased it like a question, but Gray couldn’t help but hear how amazingly hopeful she sounded over the aspect of another person with the same size of feet as him losing a pair of skates. He scoffed, but smiled slightly, silently grateful to see such hope for something so insignificant.

 

“I think the chances of that happening any time soon are lower than being able to afford a pair for myself,”

 

“Gray shouldn’t give up hope! Juvia believes something good will happen to you!” Her face was set in a determined look and she had both hands fisted in her lap. Gray smiled again; how was it that this girl cared so much about the happiness of someone she barely knew? Either way, he liked it, and even for a second he let himself believe that she was right and everything was going to work out in a not completely shitty way.

 

“Thanks,” He said bumping her shoulder lightly with his. They sat there in silence for a while, both wrapped up in their own thoughts to bother at even attempting to make conversation. A few times, Gray noticed that Juvia looked like she wanted to say something, to ask him a question. After playing a guessing game with himself over what she wanted to say, Gray came up with the conclusion that she probably wanted to ask about Lyon, and how they knew each other. It seemed like she and Lyon were skating partners, and while Gray knew next to nothing about the sport, he was smart enough to figure out that the relationship between skating partners had to be a close one. So it wasn’t hard guess that she was curious about how her partner knew Gray and why they appeared to loathe each other.

 

But it was either that she was too shy to ask or figured that he didn’t want her to pry because she never broke the silence between them. He was thankful for that; his past was something Lyon held a huge part of and something he didn’t like talking about to anyone. Not even Lucy knew the full story and she knew the most of all his friends.

 

Eventually, it grew to be late and Gray’s mood lightened enough to warrant not having an over whelming desire to be a moody teenager sulking in the stands of an arena. Once outside, Gray noticed that she didn’t have a car waiting for her to jump into to get home, or any method of getting home safely at that hour.

 

“How are you getting home?” He asked while locking the front doors.

 

“Juvia will just be walking home,” She replied, tucking a strand of short hair behind her ear, avoiding making eye contact.

 

“How far away do you live?” He was a little sceptical.

 

“Not that far. It’s only a twenty minute walk,” He knew she was trying to be casual about it.

 

“That’s pretty far considering it’s almost one A.M.” He frowned at her. She just smiled awkwardly and waved her hands at him.

 

“No, no it’s fine really. Juvia is used to walking home at night,”

 

“Being used to it and it being right aren’t the same thing,” He dug around in his jacket pocket for a moment before pulling out two brightly coloured squares of paper, slightly bent and dog-eared from being in his pocket. “Here, take the bus home. I’ll come with you to make sure you don’t get yourself lost or something.” He extended the bus tickets out to her, but she just looked at them like they were small bombs that he had asked her to light. Sighing loudly, Gray physically took one of her hands and shoved the bus tickets into them, making sure was closed her hand around them before starting to walk to the bus station that was a few meters down the road from the arena. She was stunned silent for a moment before she ran to catch up to him.

 

“Why did you give Juvia two?” She asked when she was walking by his side.

 

“Because that’s how many you need to get on one bus,” He answered, giving her a crooked look. Had this girl never ridden a city bus before?

 

“Juvia doesn’t understand why they didn’t just make one ticket instead of two,” Gray just shrugged his shoulders in response, mainly because he didn’t really understand it either. As they continued their short walk, Juvia stared at the tickets like they were all of a sudden going to grow a mouth and explain why there were two and not one.

 

Once they had arrived at the bus stop, Gray started to rummage around in his pockets and his bag to retrieve any spare coins he could.

 

“What are you doing?” Juvia asked him. _‘Man, this girl is full of questions’_ , Gray thought to himself.

 

“I’m looking for spare coins,” He responded.

 

“Why?”

 

He should have seen that one coming. “There are three ways to get on the bus; a bus pass, bus tickets, or paying the fare in coins. I don’t have a bus pass and you have the last of my bus tickets so I’m left with having to pay the fare.” Juvia frowned and looked like she was going to object to him giving her his last tickets, so he interjected to explain before she could even ask. “Usually you can get away with not paying the whole fee when you’ve got lots of coins. Sometimes they question you about it though and I think you would probably start crying if that were to happen to you.” She blushed heavily and stayed quiet, making a small smirk appear on Gray’s face when she essentially confirmed his suspicions.

 

Thankfully, the bus appeared not too long after Gray gathered enough coins to be able to pass as the expected three dollars and forty-five cents. He let Juvia get on first, and silently pointed to where she was supposed to slide the tickets in, and to where she needed to pick up her transfer. He then dropped his handful of coins into a similar console, giving a driver a quick glance to see if they were going to challenge Gray at all. But to his delight, the driver had barely paid any notice to them as they got on, probably too tired from having been driving around all day and gotten stuck with one of the late night routes.

 

The bus was pretty quiet, Gray noted as they got moving. It was nothing new as most people weren’t bussing around at one in the morning. He was glad though, it meant that there was no one to be loud and annoying and it ensure that he and Juvia could sit together; he would really feel bad if she got stuck sitting next to some weird guy that smelt like mouldy cheese.

 

Once they were seated, he answered all her questions she had about the bus, from what the transfers were (“Proof of payment so you don’t get accused of having snuck on the bus. That and they let you get on other busses within the next hour and a half without having to pay again.”) to the way the different bus routes worked.

 

True to her word, she didn’t live far away and they were soon coming up to the stop he knew was the closest to the address she had previously told him. “Okay, we’re getting off at the next stop.” He said as he pulled the cord that ran along the side of the bus, signalling to the driver they wanted to get off at the next stop.

 

When they had pulled close to the stop and the automated voice announced the name of the station, Juvia stood up quickly, like she didn’t want the bus driver to think they weren’t actually getting off and keep driving.

 

“No need to be so hasty there,” Gray said as he stood much more slowly, positioning himself to be slightly more behind her, anticipating what would happen next. Much to his amusement, he was correct in his assumptions; when the bus made a full stop, Juvia was not ready for the jerk she got and was thrown off balance, trying to reach out to grab something to steady herself, but ultimately falling back into Gray’s chest and waiting hands. He gripped her arm with one hand while the other one was keeping both of them from toppling over and was gripped around a hand grip hanging from the ceiling.

 

“You okay?” He asked her, not even trying to hide the smile on his face. She just blushed and stammered an apology. She was still a stuttering mess when they stepped off the bus and Gray was laughing by the time it drove away. “C’mon, you need to get home before you trip over a flat surface,” He teased her. They made a short walk to her house, which was grand to say the least. Really, Gray considered it less of a house and more of a mansion.

 

“Thank you for walking me home, Gray,” She said as they stood at the end of her driveway.

 

“Don’t mention it,” He rubbed at the back of his neck. “Erza would have my ass if she found out I let someone walk home at night be themselves,” For a moment he forgot that she may not know who Erza was, but when she didn’t look confused he figured Erza was notorious enough to be known be everyone. And then remembered she was also student council president. He blamed the late night on his slow uptake.

 

“Anyway, I’ll see you tomorrow,” And with a slight wave of his hand, he was walking back towards the bus station.

 

“Good night,” He heard her say from behind him. When he got back to the bus station and onto the next bus going in his direction, he leaned back into his seat and let his eyes slide closed. He realised happily that he hadn’t been this relaxed in a while, and he hadn’t even had to go skating to achieve it.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you for reading! This is now caught up with the one on FF.Net so the updates will be a little (a lot) further apart than normal. Sorry but you'll be experiencing the full force of my shitty updates :') 
> 
> Also thank you to everyone who has left kudos on this work, positive reinforcement keeps me motivated!

**Author's Note:**

> I tend to have more notes when I post on ff.net so if you want to read my babblings then you should read it there :3 fair warning that I'm the shittiest updater~


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